Graham Rice's New Plants Blog

Editor-in-Chief of the RHS Encyclopedia of Perennials; writer for a wide range of newspapers and magazines including The Garden and The Plantsman; member of the RHS Herbaceous Plant Committee and Floral Trials Committee; author of many books on plants and gardens.

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2013 RHS Plant Finder is out – with over 4,000 new plants

Yesterday saw the launch of the 2013 RHS Plant Finder, now with over 75,000 entries and over 4,300 new additions for this year. Of course, some of these additions are plants that are returning but the majority are new plants, first time entries.

It’s always instructive to take a look at the new plants that are listed by the most nurseries, it’s a good gauge of their value, and top of the list this year, with ten stockists, is Geranium Azure Rush™. If this pale blue, white-eyed hardy geranium is as good as its parent, Geranium Rozanne™, then it’s going to be a popular success.

Joint second on the list with eight stockists listed is, perhaps unexpectedly, a 1m high thistle. Cirsium rivulare ‘Trevor's Blue Wonder’. “It's not blue but it is bluer (than 'Atropurpureum')…,” says Bob Brown of Cotswold Garden Plants. He continues: “the stems are a mixture of white pubescence and purple staining with silvery-green basal foliage.”

Also in the Top Ten most widely stocked newcomers is a plant I wrote up here last year,Choisya x dewitteana 'Aztec Gold', with white flowers and narrow golden evergreen leaves. More recently, just a few weeks ago, I wrote up another popular newcomer for 2013 Hydrangea aspera 'Hot Chocolate' with its dark foliage a large lacecap flowers. One of a number of new Shasta daisies, Leucanthemum x superbum FREAK! ('Leuz0001'), is also in the Top Ten.

The other four places are all taken up with new roses from David Austin Roses: Boscobel (‘Auscousin'), Heathcliff (‘Ausnipper'), Tranquillity (‘Ausnoble') and The Lark Ascending (‘Ausursula').